Hi New Friends! I’m guest blogging for the darling Kristen while she is away on vacation. I’m Lyndsey; you’ll usually find me over at my blog A Year of Many “Firsts.”

Now, I know it’s summertime, but I wanted to share some back to school resources with you. If you’re still in summertime mode, just store them away until you’re ready to “go there.”

Nothing gets me more excited than children’s books, especially ones written by my favorite author, Kevin Henkes. I find I read a lot of his books at the beginning of the year because many of them touch on important first grade topics: new beginnings, new friendships, and following rules.

My two FAVORITE books by Henkes are Wemberly Worried and Chrysanthemum. They are perfect first grade reads. I find my students can really relate to the each character’s feelings!

I wanted to share some posters and resources I used in my classroom at the beginning of last year. Hope you enjoy the free resources!

Last year, after reading both of these books, we made two anchor charts and wrote down how each character felt in the two stories. The observations from my students were SO insightful. I love it when they do the teaching and I just sit back and listen!

Then, we used this bubble map to describe Wemberly’s character traits.

And, we used this B-M-E organizer to help us retell her story.

We also described Chrysanthemum’s character traits and retold the important parts of the her story.

After reading both stories, we compared the two characters. My kids LOVED this! For this activity, I bundled my kids up into groups of 3 and let them go at it. Afterwards, I had them share their ideas with the whole class, which also helped them work on their presentation skills.

Think you might read these stories? You can grab all of these goodies below for free, people! Make sure you download the file. It will look funny if you leave it in Google Docs. Enjoy!

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Hi! I'm Kristen and I have been an early childhood teacher for 13 years. I currently teach kindergarten at a private Christian school in Austin, Texas. My passion is creating fun, engaging and inspiring lessons for my students and then sharing them with you! I strive to integrate science and social studies into all aspects of my classroom. I hope you enjoy my blog. Please let me know if you have questions or comments.